Today’s news round up in Poland
Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.
TVPInfo.pl – The state-owned TV news channel carried a story that, according to the State Assets Minister, Saudi Arabia may invest in the Polish energy sector. After Poland's biggest oil and gas company, PKN Orlen, took over its main competitor Lotos, some Lotos assets were sold to Saudi Aramco, one of the largest companies in the world. Jacek Sasin said he had had several meetings with Saudi Arabian representatives and had talked about further investments. He added that a new strategy divided the Polish energy sector into two main streams – a coal-based one and renewable energy.
Wyborcza.pl – The biggest daily carried a story on Wednesday's hearing at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on mainly CHF-denominated mortgages. The hearing concerned the admissibility of banks seeking compensation for the cost of capital or remuneration for the use of capital in FX mortgages' agreements being declared null and void by courts due to abusive clauses. Bankers are arguing that if the CJEU negated the possibility of banks' seeking remuneration for use of capital in FX loans it would cost the sector PLN 100 billion (EUR 20.6 billion). Poland's Ombudsman and Financial Ombudsman argue that abusive agreements should not be remunerated. There are around half a million FX mortgages in Poland and in the majority of cases courts are ruling against banks that the credit contracts were abusive.
rp.pl – The daily carried a story that the official opening of Baltic Pipe was delayed due to a lack of air traffic controllers. The Baltic Pipe is a joint venture by Polish and Danish gas operators Gaz-System and Energinet that allows the transport of natural gas from Norway. The opening took place before the end of September. At that time, there was only one air traffic controller at the airport in Szczecin (north-western Poland) and he had an obligatory break while other controllers were on sick leave. So neither the Polish president nor the PM could take off and had to wait at Warsaw airport, while the Danish PM's plane had to fly a hold. This is why the ceremony was delayed, according to private TV news channel TVN24.pl, which first reported the story.
TVN24.pl – The private TV news channel carried a story that the Polish state plans to buy out the Zabka retail chain. Jarosław Kaczynksi, leader of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said during a meeting with Pulawy inhabitants that Polish Food Group, created in April, does not have enough funds right now but in the future it plans to nationalise Zabka, one of the country's biggest chains of grocery stores. Zabka is owned by a Luxembourg-based private equity CVC and has over 8,000 brick-and-mortar stores. The company’s press office said that Kaczynski's statement "does not pertain to any process involving our company thus we cannot comment." CVC is the owner of PKP Energetyka S.A, an electricity distributor to the Polish railway network. According to Kaczynski, this company should also be nationalized.
